it gives your child a name. Reflect, my dear, upon the condition of a bastard. His state is in itself an insult. He is born with heavy disadvantages under all the codes of law I know; he is penalized from birth. He is debarred from many callings; if he is admitted to society at all, he is admitted only on sufferance; he meets the reproach at every turn all through his life - any tenth transmitter of a foolish face, any lawfully begotten blockhead can throw it in his teeth, and he has no reply. I believe you are aware that I am myself a bastard: I speak with full knowledge when I say that it is a cruel, cruel thing to entail upon a child.'
'I am sure it is, Stephen,' she said, deeply moved. She pressed his hand, and they sat for a while without speaking. Then she said in a low voice, 'But that is why I have come to you, the only friend I can rely on. You understand these things; you are a physician. Stephen, I could not bear to have that man's child. It would be a monster. I know that in India women used to take a root called holi ...'
'There, my dear, there is a certain proof that your judgment is astray: otherwise you would never have thought of such a course, nor would you ever have said such a thing to me. My whole function is to preserve life, not to take it away. The oath I have sworn, and all my convictions - '
'Stephen,' she said, 'I beg of you not to fail me.' She sat, twisting her fingers together, and in a low, pleading voice she murmured 'Stephen, Stephen ...'
'Diana,' he said, 'you must marry me.'
She shook her head. Each knew that the other was immovable, and they sat in a miserable silence until the door burst open and a very young officer, pink and white, extremely cheerful, cried 'There you are, ma'am; there you are, sir. I have found you both at the same time. I can deliver both my messages at once.' And then, very rapidly, as by rote, and in an official tone he said, 'Admiral Colpoys presents his best compliments and respects to Mrs Villiers; has the honour to acquaint her that the packet sails directly, and begs her to repair aboard at her earliest possible convenience.' He drew breath and went on, 'The Commander-in-chief informs Dr Maturin that Diligence sails on the next tide but one, and directs him to proceed to the man-of-war's hard with the utmost dispatch. There she lies, sir,' he went on in a natural voice, pointing out of the window, 'the brig just beyond Chesapeake. She has the blue peter flying.'
CHAPTER THREE
The Diligence tided it down the long harbour during the night, and before daybreak she was clear of the Little Thrumcap: by the time the dim sun began to whiten the eastern sky she had made a good offing, and with a moderate breeze on her starboard beam she was steering a little north of east under all plain sail, to leave Sable Island well to the south. Astern there was nothing to be seen: even if the weather had not been so hazy, she had long since sunk the high land of Cape Sambro. But six points on her starboard bow there lay a vessel dark against the light, a tall schooner, not five miles away. Not a sloop, not a man-of-war, but unmistakably a schooner: and in any case the Nova Scotia, given a whole tide's start, was at least forty miles beyond the horizon.
She was lying there with no way on her, breasting the swell under her reefed fore-and-aft mainsail; yet it was clear that she was no fisherman, since she had no dories anywhere around her, and in any case no skipper making a voyage for cod would have brought a long slim rakish schooner with little room for his catch to a place where there were even fewer fish.
The second mate, who had the watch, saw her as soon as the lookout on the forecastle, and after one hard stare across the lightening sea he stepped below to the cabin, where the Captain and Jack Aubrey were eating steak. 'I believe we have the Liberty to windward, sir,' he said.
'Is that so, Mr Crosland?' said the Captain. 'And how far off might she be?'
'A matter of five mile, sir.'
'Then bear up, Mr Crosland, and set the foretop-gallantsail. I shall be on deck presently.'
Mr Dalgleish, the owner - literally the owner - of the Diligence, emptied his cup deliberately, took his spyglass from the rack, and walked up the companion-ladder, followed by Jack.
The stranger had already filled and worn on the same course, and as they watched, gazing over the starboard quarter, a signal broke out at her masthead: she fired a windward gun.
It was clear to Jack, as he considered her, that there was a strong possibility of her being an American privateer - no one else would lie there in the middle of the main shipping-lane between England and Canada -and he was not particularly surprised when Dalgleish, passing the telescope, said, 'Yes. She is the Liberty; and I see Mr Henry has given her a new coat of paint. Tom,' - to a nimble youth, his son - 'jump to the masthead and tell me whether Mr Henry's signal means anything or whether it is just another wicked falsehood. Mr Crosland, flying-jib ...'
While Dalgleish was giving orders for more sail Jack studied the Liberty: a long low schooner painted black, about seventy-five feet in length and twenty in beam, a vessel of perhaps a hundred and fifty tons, built for speed. As far as he could see she carried eight broadside guns, probably twelve-pounder carronades, and something in the way of a bow-chaser. Her deck was crowded with men. She had set a square foretopsail and she was coming down goosewinged; but no schooner could show her best paces before the wind, goosewinged or not, and during his long study of her it did not appear to him that she gained much, if indeed she gained at all.
'Good morning, sir,' said a voice by his side.
'Good morning, Mr Humphreys,' said Jack rather coolly. Humphreys was the officer chosen to carry the duplicate dispatch rather than any of the master's mates who had fought in the action with the Chesapeake. In the opinion of the service it was a vile job, designed to secure Humphreys' advancement. There was no possible doubt of the Shannon's officers being promoted, and Falkiner was in fact aboard the Nova Scotia, heading straight for a commander's commission; but even so it was felt that one of the younger men should also have shared in the glory at home.
'What do you see, Tom?' called Mr Dalgleish.
'Well now, Dad,' said Tom, 'I believe I make out a sail, hull-down, two or maybe three points abaft the beam. But it is cruel hazy there in the eye of the sun, and it may be an ice-mountain.'
'What away to leeward, Tom?'
'Nothing to leeward, Dad, bar a pod of whales - there she blows again! - and north I see clear to the horizon.' A pause; and then from on high, 'Harkee, Dad, that is a sail to windward. A schooner, too.'
'Thanks be,' murmured the master of the packet; and turning to Jack he said, 'I am right glad I said we should go south about Sable Island. With t'other beating up from leeward, they would have pinched us between them like ...' With one eye to his glass, and that glass trained on the Liberty, he sought for some likeness that might strengthen the idea of two vessels gradually closing in upon a third from either side over an enormous stretch of
